Share

Ever wonder what it’s like to combat opioid addiction and hepatitis C virus (HCV) on the ground? This week, Westword Magazine in collaboration with Denver’s Harm Reduction Action Center (HRAC) published a four-part in-depth series about battling addiction in Colorado. The series paints a devastating multifaceted picture of the crisis and proposes a number of solutions to help address it.

In the first article, harm reduction advocates discuss the daily habits of local heroin users, the quality of the drugs they’re injecting and the overdose risks many drug users are facing.

The second article talks about the rise in injection meth and heroin users accessing local harm reduction facilities and the troubling stories around homelessness and addiction they’ve been telling community health workers on the front line of the crisis.

The third article makes the case for establishing supervised injection facilities in Denver as a way of mitigating overdose risk in public libraries and bathrooms. The article also speaks of the political hurdles that addiction and hepatitis prevention workers face when trying to get lifesaving legislation passed.

The final article in the series lays down the scope of the state’s addiction crisis — which mirrors that of the nation at large in that it affects white suburban or rural young adults.